Composing with the tape recorder

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Composing with the tape recorder

A case study of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Brian Eno & David Byrne

Music and Sound Design Electronics

Composing with the tape recorder

A case study of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Brian Eno & David Byrne

Johanna Åström

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MID SWEDEN UNIVERSITY

Examiner: Brian Johnston, brian.johnston@miun.se Supervisor: Clara Jalmar, clara.jalmar@miun.se

Author: Johanna Åström, Johanna.aastroem@gmail.com Degree programme: Music and Sound Design, 120 credits Main field of study: Electronics

Semester, year: HT, 2019

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Abstract

Keywords: tape recorder, music production, composing, sampling, Brian Eno, David Byrne, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

This work describes the utilisation of the tape recorder as an instrument, the methods derived by musique concrète and the evolution of these practices. This leads on to its application that opened different creativity streams to many genres of music that we listen to today. This dissertation dives in the further to talk about to the album ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ by Brian Eno and David Byrne its cult status, revolutionary production and opens doors to discussing cultural appropriation and copyright infringement.

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Foreword

In research for my upcoming album, I recently came across the album ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ by Brian Eno and David Byrne. I was struck and fasci- nated by the albums culturally interesting features and began to read into the background of its production and upswing. Hand in hand with a passion for production of electronic music, it is with a pleasure and great enthusiasm I have completed this study.

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Terminology

The following study is seeking to understand the potential of the tape recorder as an instrument. In order to continue it seems appropriate to define some recurring topics.

Abbreviations

Ambient music a type of music, often without a tune or beat, that is intended to make people relax or create a particular mood

DAW Digital Audio Workstation

Electronic Music a form of music consisting of sounds produced by oscillating electric currents either controlled from an instrument panel or keyboard or pre recorded on magnetic tap

Music Production a process of creating recorded music projects.

Musique concrète a historic style of electronic music developed in France, describing a work conceived with a recording medium in mind that was composed directly on a given medium (e.g. magnetic tape) and played through the medium as a finished work.

Tape recorder a machine that is used for playing and recording sound onto tape

World music popular music that has been influenced by the music of traditional cultures

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1 Introduction

“Just as photography changed the way we see, recording technology changed the way we hear” – David Byrne, 2012.

The invention of the tape recorder re-shaped the way music production was carried out. Not only did it change the way sound was reordered and stored, but it also allowed to be used as an instrument itself. Elements of creativity, experimentation and sampling could now be mixed together in a unique way that has never been done before, something that is easy to take for granted within music production today (Holmes 2016 p 170).

The book “Composing with Tape Recorders: Musique Concrète for Beginners”

by Terence Dwyer, published in 1971, previously touched on this topic. With this book the reader can learn several techniques and exercises of how to use the tape recorder as an instrument, from recording different sound objects to then manipulate them in various ways (Dwyer 1971). As an extension to this book, the following study is hereby seeking to understand how these methods have been developed further from musique conrcète and adopted by popular music.

In 1981 the album ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ by Brian Eno and David Byrne was released. The album was praised for its innovative use of sampled voices and sounds but was also met with controversy due to the fact that two white Western men were using recordings from the Middle East and Africa and putting them to their own uses (Dahlen 2006). It is therefore is a noteworthy object to be studied further.

Fifty years has passed since Dwyer’s book came out and forty years since the

‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’, which makes it interesting to study this field from the “future”.

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1.1 Statement of purpose and research question

The purpose of this thesis is to understand how the tape recorder can be used as an instrument by analysing and listening to the album ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ by Brian Eno and David Byrne. By studying this album in detail, the aim is to determine the methods used in the production process and how these techniques affect the finished product. Furthermore, this thesis will discuss potential ethical and legal consequences of using the tape recorder as an instrument as well as how these techniques came to lay the foundation for future practices within the field of music production.

• How was the tape recorder utilised as a composition medium in the making of ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’?

o How did these techniques shape the final sound?

o Which ethical and legal consequences can these methods lead to?

o How did these sampling techniques influence future practices within music production?

These questions will be answered through a composition-based study of the musical object from the perspective of the composer, according to the music analysis method by Gunnar Ternhag, described in chapter 4.

1.2 Definitions and limitations

This study is seeks to understand how the tape recorder can be used as an instrument during music production and the potential consequences of its use.

Due to limitations in time and the nature of the course I have decided to focus specifically on the album ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ by Brian Eno and David Byrne to give practical evidence on how to compose with the tape recorder as well as its aftermath. As a result this study will not aim to cover all possibilities or consequences involving tape composing, but rather contribute

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with an understanding of the topic and leave options open for further research within the field of tape music.

Composing with the tape recorder should not be confused with recording with the tape recorder. This study is primarily dealing with the use of already recorded sounds and how these can be edited, altered, superimposed etc. through manipulations by the composer, which then become a new recording.

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2 Background

The following chapter is dedicated to give the reader an understanding about the development of the tape recorder and its utilisation in the music studio, in particular within the field of electronic music and tape composing. Additionally this will cover a background about the composer Brian Eno and David Byrne together with their album ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’.

2.1 Tape recorder

The magnetic tape recorder as we know it today, originated from Germany in the 1930s, however due to the Second World War it took almost a decade before it became ubiquitous within the music studios. The tape recorder allowed several ground breaking features such as multi-tracking and editing, as well as the way sound was stored. “There was no going back after the arrival of the tape machine” is a quote from the book Electronic and Experimental Music (Holmes 2016 p 47-53). Initially it was only possible to record one single track on the tape recorder, but eventually this was developed to allow recording in stereo, which meant that there were two microphones connected to the recorder, grasping the sound from two different angles. In the 1960’s this developed to three tracks and further 4, 8, 16 and eventually up to 48 tracks that could be recorded simultaneously. This advanced the recording process and essentially constructed post-production. A band could record each instrument separately and edit it in its own suitable way. It is safe to say that the tape recorder became a vital asset in recording studios worldwide. However, the tape recorder turned out to not only be a tool for the recording of traditional instruments, it also had the possibility to be utilised as an instrument itself, creating new sounds in endless dimensions (Eno 1983). The tape recorder became the composer’s medium and enabled much more experimentation on recordings. Most of the methods used in music production today are based on practices derived from the tape recorder. Sampling is one such thing (Holmes 2016 p 189).

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2.2 Case study background

Prior to discussing the production of the album ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’, I would like to provide you with a small background regarding the featured artists Brian Eno and David Byrne who cultivated the album.

2.2.1 Brian Eno

The English composer, producer and sound artist Brian Eno started to explore the field of electronic music in the 1970s. He began his professional musical career by joining the glam rock band Roxy Music in 1970-73, in which he played keyboard. Eno was treating the group’s live sound electronically with a tape recorder and VC5 3 synthesizer. He coined a role for himself as an “aural collagist.” Following three successful years in Roxy Music, Eno left the group and developed his interest in sound’s timbral character and music technology further by producing and releasing two instrumental albums ‘Pussy Footing’

with Robert Fripp in 1973 and ‘Another Green World’ in 1975, both infused with different tape-looping elements. Eno’s albums ‘Discreet Music’ from 1975 and ‘Music for Airports’ from 1979 resulted in a new defined music genre:

ambient music (Buckley 2014). The Cambridge Dictionary defines ambient music as

“a type of music, often without a tune or beat, that is intended to make people relax or create a particular mood”(Cambridge Dictionary 2019)

Although Eno termed the genre ambient music, he claims that several artists had created similar music for years and that he just gave it a name (Morley 2010). Eno portrays himself as a “non-musician” who is heavily dependent on technology such as the tape recorder to curate and coordinate sounds (Buckley 2014). In an interview in the music magazine ‘Musician’ in 1979, Eno said: “I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was just like a magic thing, and I always used to ask my parents if I could have one but I never got one, until just before I went to art school I got access to one and started playing

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with it, and then when I went to art school they had them there. I thought it was magic to be able to catch something identically on tape and then be able to play around with it, run it backwards; I thought that was great for years" (Bangs 1979).

2.2.2 David Byrne

David Byrne is a Scottish born American who is well known for being the lead singer of the new wave band Talking Heads, a band that was mainly active in the 1980’s. He further developed his career in theatre and film.

Byrne is an artist with a reputation for refusing to compromise his creative integrity, but who nonetheless made music that was capable of being enjoyed by a wide range of listeners, Byrne perfectly complemented Eno's intellectual vigor and technical ability. (Georgiveski 2006)

2.2.3 My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

In 1977 Eno met the lead singer of the new-wave band Talking Heads, David Byrne, on their UK tour. Connecting through their musical passions, Eno and Byrne initiated decades of collaborations, starting with Talking Heads’ second album ‘More Songs About Buildings and Food’ released in 1978 (Helmore 2009).

After repeatedly exchanging tapes found on travels around the world, Eno and Byrne eventually came up with an idea to create a series of recordings about an imaginary culture. Both musicians were inspired by African pop, although except for Fela Kuti there was minimal information about the African artists and the Internet did not exist. Vocal samples were taken from a variety of sources from around the world, such as radio shows, Lebanese mountain singers, preachers and Muslim chants. A wide range of musical instruments were also used in the recording process but also sounds created by non-musical means (Georgievski 2006).

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The album title is taken from an African novel with the same name, written by Amos Tutola in 1954. According to Byrne’s 2006 sleeve notes, neither he nor Eno had read the novel, but felt that the title "seemed to encapsulate what this record was about" (Eno & Byrne 2006).

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3 Theory

The following section is intended to give the reader an understanding of the theory and principles behind composing with a tape recorder and its origin.

3.1 Musique Concrète

The French musician Pierre Schaeffer is a pioneer of composing with the tape recorder. Working in the French broadcasting company Radiodiffusion Fran- çaise Nationale (RFN), Schaeffer was able to experiment with the tape recorder while recording sounds that traditionally were not perceived as music, such as trains and sounds sourced from nature. He further cut these recordings into what we today know as samples that were then manipulated in different ways, such as looping, reversing and adding filters. This way of creating music became the term musique concrète (Holmes 2016 p 52). In musique concrète the sound object (L’Objet Sonore) is central, and in turn, sequences of sounds creates music. It is the process of manipulation and experimentation of these samples that gave the unique characteristics of this new experimental genre of electronic music. According to Schaeffer musique concrète is based on four principles:

1. “The act of composing music is realised through technological means, working directly with the recording medium.

2. Any and all manner of sounds can comprise the raw material for making the music. Many of the sound materials were of natural, not musical, origin.

3. The work can be replayed identically over and over again using mechan- ical means.

4. Presentation of the work does not require human performance.”

(Holmes 2016, p 54)

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When Schaeffer’s musical pieces were first released they were not received as music, to some extent his work was even classed as noise. Even today musique concrète is appreciated as avant-garde and experimental music, however the creative processes with the tape recorder instigated from this genre have laid the foundation for sampling and electronic music, as we know it today (Patrick 2016).

3.2 Tape composition techniques

The emergence of electronic music through musique concrète as well as the arrival of the tape recorder resulted in several artists pushing the boundaries with this for today obsolete medium. The magnetic tape recording is completely analogue, which means that no digital processing is used to record or playback sounds. Here follows techniques developed with the rise of musique concrète (Holmes 2016 p 173).

3.2.1 Tape slicing

Tape slicing is essentially a technique used to move sound around in time and space. By cutting pieces of recorded material this allows sounds to be removed or added as a layer onto a new recording, in turn, changing the linear sequence of an original piece. The magnetic tape can be spliced in various ways, each creating its own unique sound character. The splicing process is divided in three steps: first the recording of raw material, secondly extracting sections of sound to be used in the final assembly and finally, assembling these sections of tape to a desired sequence (Holmes 2016 p 175).

3.2.2 Degeneration of a recorded signal

Due to noise introduced in the magnetic tape recording as well as the recorders inability to respond equally across all frequencies, the fidelity of each succes- sive copy of the original master will degenerate when copying a recording.

Hence this is a crucial consequence that always had to be considered in the

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process of multiplying recordings. However, degeneration of a sound recording could in contrary be used as an advantage if one wanted to accomplish a natural filter that was attenuating certain frequencies while accentuating others. For example, Brian Eno used this technique as an underlying concept for ‘Discreet Music’ in 1975 (Holmes 2016 p 177).

3.2.3 Tape Echo, Reverberation, Loops, and Delay

The tape recorder allowed a variety of different possibilities of repeating sounds. Tape echo is an example, where a single sound is repeated while also gradually decaying in amplitude and clarity until it completely fades away. To create this effect, the playback output signal of a recording was fed back into the input on the same machine. Tape echo quickly came to play a significant role on recording within electronic music and today several software programs and digital effect units replicate its features (Holmes 2016 p 178).

Reverberation is one of the most common effects created in the tape studio, in particular by Pierre Schaeffer. Essentially it is based on the similar psychoa- coustic phenomena as with the echo, but is achieved by mixing fractions of ghost frequencies after the actual signal so that it feels like the recording oc- curred in a certain space (Holmes 2016 p 180).

Tape loop is another effect created by cutting pieces of the magnetic tape and connect the ends so that it creates a repetition of the sound. This process is different to the previous two effects by the fact that the repetition does not decrease in amplitude. Digital sampling that is widely used in music production today is fundamentally based on tape looping (Holmes 2016 p 180).

An extended form of tape echo is called tape delay, which can be accomplished by using two or more tape recorders. To create a longer break between the repetitions the sound is first recorded on one tape recorder and then played-back on the second recorder. The delay time is equal to the distance the sound needs to travel between the two recorders (Holmes 2016 p 181).

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3.2.4 Multitrack composition

As the tape recorder evolved, so did its features. Multitracking is one such feature that allowed several individual channels to be recorded simultaneously, creating layers of sounds that in turn could be adjusted in amplitude via a mixer to create a desirable outcome (Holmes 2016 p 184).

3.2.5 Tape reversal

A widely used effect within electronic music is to reverse an existing recording, which will change the character of the sound completely. A main noticeable factor is that this will reverse the amplitude envelope, which means that a sound that starts loud and later decreases, such as a boom, will instead start quiet and then increase (Holmes 2016 p 186).

3.2.6 Tape Speed Manipulation

Changing the speed of the recording will lead to a change in the sounds pitch and duration. The tape recorder usually had two or three standard transport speeds: 19cm per second, 38 cm per second and 76 cm per second. The higher the speed, the higher fidelity of the recording due to more magnetic particles was being devoted to record a certain sound. A tiny rotating, motor driven spindle called a capstan determined the speed of the recording. This spindle pinched the tape against a rubber roller and pulled it from the supply reel to the take-up reel. Speed change could be achieved by changing the size of the capstan (Holmes 2016 p 186).

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4 Methodology and Material

The following section aims to give the reader an understanding of the method in which this study will be carried out.

4.1 Analysis model

In order to scientifically and academically analyse a musical composition it is important to break down each individual part of a recording and further analyse these parts in its relation to each other. The Swedish author Gunnar Ternhag has in his book ‘What do I hear?’ (“Vad är det jag hör?”) explained two main ways of analysing music, intention analysis and reception analysis. The aim of an intention analysis is to understand how a work is constructed through the eyes of the composer whereas the reception analysis is based on the listener’s narra- tive. In general, journalists use the latter when writing music reviews (Ternhag 2009 p 41). In this study I have chosen to utilise intention analysis.

4.1.1 Intention analysis and its three steps

In accordance with Ternhag’s suggested analysis method, the first step is to make a detailed sound description, by listening carefully to each element and layer of the track and to how it evolves over time. This is normally described chronologically and it is important to present an objective portrayal of the song.

As it may be difficult and require too much text to document every single sound, one should make a selection of the most defining elements when carrying out the sound description (Ternhag 2009 p 41).

The next step requires a research of the background of how the track was created and composed. A tracks creation can be divided into three parts: pre- conditions and preparatory work; recording; and post-production. The first part covers the participants of the recording as well as equipment and the studio in which the recording was made. This also includes potential repetition and practices made in advance to the actual recording. The second part should focus

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on the actual recording process such as days to complete and where it took place. The last part of the background research refers to the post-production, which mainly refers to the mixing and mastering (Ternhag 2009 p 44).

The third and final step of Ternhag’s analysis model is where the actual intention analysis takes place. This step involve describing why the music sounds the way it does while keeping in mind the information analysed and discovered in the previous two steps. There is room for imagination in this step as it is rarely possible to find sources that prove the composers intentions with their work such as influences and motives (Ternhag 2009 p 46).

4.2 Material

As previously mentioned, the material used in this study is the album ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghost’ by Brian Eno and David Byrne. According to Gunnar Ternhag, in order to create a satisfactory analysis it is important to take into consideration the original format that the release was initially released on (Ternhag 2009 p 40). As such I acquired the original release from 1981 on a vinyl. This record includes the following 11 tracks

Side A

1. “America is Waiting” 3:36

2. “Mea Culpa” 3:35

3. “Regiment” 3:56

4. “Help Me Somebody” 4:18

5. “The Jezebel Spirit” 4:55

Side B

1. “Qu’ran” 3:46

2. ”Moonlight” 4:19

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3. “The Carrier” 3:30

4. “A Secret Life” 2:20

5. “Come With Us” 2:38

6. “Mountain of Needles” 2:35

In order to narrow this study down I have selected two songs from the album to analyse. I have based the selection particularly on the amount of documentation available as well on the musical characteristics. The songs I have selected are

‘Mea Culpa’ and ‘The Jezebel Spirit’.

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5 Analysis

Following section is based on the methodological approach described in chapter 4. The subheading in the following chapter is outlined according to the different steps within the analysis, Sound Description, Background and Intention analysis. As mentioned previously, the songs analysed are ‘Mea Culpa’ and The Jezebel Spirit.

5.1 Sound Description

The second track on ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’, ‘Mea Culpa’, starts off the first twenty seconds with a distressed voice sampled from what appears to be an American radio show. The voice is in a loop, overlapping in different layers that are panned both left and right. There is a tape delay on the vocal that change delay time randomly, from slap back delay to numerous milliseconds.

The vocal sample has been speed manipulated and is substantially faster than its original. As a result the vocal has a higher pitch. Layers of the same distressed vocal sample are played simultaneously in different speeds. ‘Mea Culpas’ lyrics are as follows:

“What are you saying? He said "I'm sorry, I committed a sin, I made a mistake. I asked for forgiveness... please forgive me." He said "Mea Culpa," can you put it better? "I'm saying I'm sorry, I made a mistake, I made... I committed a sin, I made a mistake. And I'm never gonna do it again, I never did it before and I'm never gonna do it again." (Byrne n.d.)

Twenty seconds in, an arpeggiated synth bass increasingly fades in and accom- panies the looping vocals, followed by rhythmic tribal-style percussions. At 0:36, a different smooth vocal enters and takes over from the distressed radio voice. It is difficult to understand what the vocal is saying as it has been spliced and slowed down, hence also pitched down. During the following 40 bars, the two different vocal sections are intersecting in four bars at the time, establishing a call-and response-type dialogue. Meanwhile the insistent percussion is playing and determines the underlying tempo and rhythm of the song until the

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voices stop. A couple of bars in, an unidentified sound appears and travels from right to left in the stereo image and then disappears abruptly. The sound effect then reappears accompanied by a synth section. The synth melody that follows gives the song a new higher dimension and allows the rhythm and percussion to speak for itself. This new dimension involves layers of synth melodies in symbiosis together with the underlying drums that are still playing in the background. At 3:49 the final section of the voice samples return and join the synth, percussion and bass. A minute later, the song starts to fade out and ends at 4:57.

‘The Jezebel Spirit’ is the fifth track on the album. The intro is instrumental, with a bass, guitar riff, a simple drumbeat and percussion. Different synths gradually enter as well as sound effects in the background. At 1:10, an Ameri- can exorcist eventually arrives in the track. He is preaching to a woman whose voice is not included in the song. Here is the preach that appears in the song:

“Do you hear voices?

You do, so you are possessed.

You are a believer, born again

And yet you hear voices and you are possessed.

Ok, are you ready to give us a listen?

Put your hand over there.

We want this figured out.

Ok sister;

You have a Jezebel spirit within you You have a spirit of grief

You have a spirit of destruction.

Jezebel,

Spirit of destruction, Spirit of grief,

I bind you with chains of iron

I bind you out of that bounded heaven.

Loosen your hold and come out of her now.

(It's no good our sister.) Out. Out Jezebel.

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Come out now (Go ahead)

Out in the name of Jesus Come out destruction Come out destruction Come out grief

Jezebel you are going to listen to me Jezebel (Go ahead sister; keep going.

Jezebel will abandon you)

She was intended by God to be a virtuous woman You have no right to her

Her husband is the head of the house Out Jezebel. Out. Out.. Let Jesus in.

That's right

I break your power Jezebel Loosen your hold on her mind Go ahead sister

Go ahead sister Use your head That was easy

You can sit down now.” (Byrne n.d. 2020)

Throughout the song one can hear several elements of percussion echoing in the background, such as sticks, Bata drum and a can. The track uses a wide variety of frequencies throughout the song. The exorcist’s withdrawal of the evil Jezebel spirit pauses at 3:18 and an instrumental part takes place. The instrumental break is filled with percussion, bells, synths and a grainy bass line. With just 30 seconds left of the song, the exorcist returns and his ritual wraps up, accompanied with music in the background.

5.2 Background

The album ‘My life in the Bush of Ghosts’ was recorded and produced in five different studios during August 1979 to October 1980: RPM Studio, New York;

Blue Rock, New York; Eldorado, Los Angeles; Different Fur, San Francisco;

and finally, Sigma, New York (Eno & Byrne 1981). Eno and Byrne were the

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main composers throughout the full album, accompanied by a few musicians across the 11 songs. In Mea Culpa a man called Dennis Keeley played a bodh- ran, an Irish frame drum (Eno & Byrne 1981). According to the album credits the sample is of an “inflamed caller and smooth politician replying, both uni- dentified. Radio call-in show, New York, July 1979” (Eno & Byrne 1981). In an interview from Trouser Press in 1981 Eno said: "Initially I was going to make a record of my own. I was thinking of doing my next solo album, so I started recording with David and other musicians. The first piece I did was Mea Culpa, which started off with just synthesizer and a voice off radio. I thought that worked very well, and I was very excited with carrying on with that idea." Eno further adds, in contrast to other songs from the album, in Mea Culpa the vocal sample came first, then the music (Isler 1981).

‘The Jezebel Spirit’ is one of two singles from the album released the same year as the album. The Bata drum used has origins from the Yoruba people, Nige- ria’s third largest ethnic group. The Bata drum was mainly used in religious circumstances but as a response to the colonial and post-colonial conditions in the country the use of the drum has reached beyond Yoruba’s religious tradi- tions (Omojola 2009). Originally, Eno and Byrne used an old vocal sample from the American radio evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman instead of the male exorcist, however on her deathbed she signed off the rights to all her shows to her colleague Oral Roberts, who in turn refused to let them use her vocal in the so song, that was previously supposed to be called ‘In the Spirit World’. After changing the vocal sample they also renamed it to ‘The Jezebel Spirit’ (McLeod

& DiCola 2011 p 169).

In his book ‘How Music work’, David Byrne describes the process of how they had to place the vocal sample into their music by trial and error. By using two tape recorders at the same time, one assigned to the music tracks and one to the vocal sample, they manually had to press play and hope that the outcome would be perfectly synced. With today’s modern samples and DAW’s this would be quantized to follow the exact beat, however as this was not possible with the

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tape recorder, it required an act of performance (Byrne 2012 p 154).

5.3 Intention analysis

In music making, the traditional composer would write onto a paper, whereas Eno and Byrne compose directly onto tape here, allowing the sound and music evolve. ‘Mea culpa’ and the album as a whole seems to have been an attempt to further introduce influences from outside the western world to the mainstream, however the song structure does not follow a traditional structure, for instance, there is no verse or chorus. The fact that Eno found the sample first, makes me think that there must have been something with this sample that resonated with him. However, the song has purposely made it difficult to hear what the sample is saying due to the different speed, pitch and delays that are layered on top of each other. The correlation between the two sampled voices seems to symbolise some sort of dialogue between two parts, alternatively it could be the difference from what actually was said (the inflamed caller) to what Eno actually selec- tively heard (smooth-sounding one).

While composing with the tape recorder, Eno and Byrne have taken the vocal samples out of their context and created a new reality in ‘Mea Culpa’ as well as in ‘The Jezebel Spirit’. The incorporation of pre-recorded vocal samples and musical composition in ‘Mea Culpa’, is likely influenced by the composer Steve Reich (b. 1936). Reich’s song ‘Come Out’ from 1966 is an early example of how the tape recorder was used as an instrument. The song includes only a single vocal sample, in which the pitch, phase, speed and more are manipulated to create layers of correlating sounds (Beirens 2014). The distressed vocal sample in ‘Mea Culpa’ is arranged in a similar way. It is an interesting aspect that the vocal in ‘Mea Culpa’ has been so manipulated that it is difficult to understand what the person is saying. By doing this, they have turned the impact away from the text and rather placed the sound elements in focus. This aligns with the theory of musique concrète, that the sound can be of natural, not musical, origin. In this case a radio.

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Religion and spirituality is a reoccurring topic and influence in ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’. The tape recorder enabled these influences to be mixed with popular music, but why were they so keen to merge these philosophies togeth- er? To answer this question with regards to ‘The Jezebel Spirit’, we first need to understand the concept of a Jezebel Spirit. Jezebel Spirit is an idea within Christianity that believes that someone has been possessed by evil powers, in which the spirit forces the human to engage in immorality, idolatry, false teaching or unrepentant sin (“What is Jezebel Spirit” 2020). The vocal sample of the preacher who is performing an exorcism to save the woman from the Jezebel Spirit is taken out of context. Little do we know about the preacher or the woman who are the subject of the entertainment, neither do we know which parts have been left out. This way of dehumanising the people in the sample might be an attempt to achieve a metaphor for something else.

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6 Results

At this point it is appropriate to return to the purpose and the research questions of this study. The purpose of this thesis is to understand how the tape recorder can be used as an instrument by analysing and listening to the album ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ by Brian Eno and David Byrne.

6.1 How was the tape recorder utilised as a composing medium in the making of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts?

As a result of this study I have come across multiple answers. First, the tape recorder was the key of initial composing. As opposed to traditional methods for music production at the time, ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ was not written on a piece of paper that later was recorder in a studio. No, the album was composed directly on the tape. Taking ‘Mea Culpa’ as an example, the vocal sample came first and was thereafter manipulated in several ways such as looping, speed manipulating, slicing and delays. This technique has continued further to the digital music production, in particular within electronic music where the beats and music composition with samples are created directly in the DAW. In which case, the tape recorder did not only change how music was recorded but also how it was written.

Secondly, several methods derived from musique concrète were used in this album such as splicing, tape looping and speed manipulation. During the song Mea culpa, this is especially evident on the vocal sample, which is played in a loop simultaneously at different speeds, pitches and delays. As a result of tape splicing in The Jezebel Spirit, the vocal sample only included one person from a dialogue between two people.

Finally, according to music concrète sounds can be derived from natural, not musical, origins and then further manipulated within the recording medium.

This is evident in different ways across the full album.

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6.1.1 How did these techniques shape the final sound?

In order to understand the final sounds of a song, one can make an analysis of the composer’s intentions. The untraditional song techniques used in this album are evident in the way the songs are structured, such as the looping in the songs which has created a rather repetitive sound. However, an important aspect is that these techniques allowed music and sounds from all backgrounds, genres and cultures to be utilised in order to maximise creativity.

6.1.2 Which ethical and legal consequences can these methods lead to?

For obvious reasons tape slicing and sampling can lead to breach of copyright.

The Oxford Dictionary defines copyright as follows:

The exclusive legal right, given to an originator or an assignee to print, pub- lish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material, and to au- thorize others to do the same (Lexico.com, 2020).

As this states, one is legally required to get an approval from the originator before using existing material. In the late 1980’s this was not a common prac- tice and as a result the clearance of the samples delayed the release of the album for a year (Byrne n.d.).

One of the tracks from the first album called Qu’ran sampled Algerian Muslims chanting verses from the Koran. This song had to be removed in the reissue after a request by the Islamic organization in London. It was considered to be

“blasphemy to put grooves to the chanting of the Holy Book", something Eno and Byrne carefully accepted and decided to remove the track (Dahlen 2006).

This leads on to cultural appropriation, regarding power dynamics between a dominant group and a marginalized group. Understanding appropriation means asking yourself about the larger cultural context in which music exist.

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In today’s world cultural appropriation and copyright are the main two topics of discussion when one use another entities work or heritage and the artist must make careful considerations and seek advice and guidance from those more familiar with the subject.

6.1.3 How did these techniques influence future practices within music production?

In music, sampling is the reuse of a portion of a sound recording in another recording. Sampling is the foundation of many different genres of music such as hip-hop and electronic music.

Generally the techniques and practices that evolved with the tape recorder are the foundation of how we create a lot of music today. When music production was developed into digital media and software took over music editing, they were all based on the methods associated with in tape recording and tape composing (Holmes 2016 p 189).

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7 Discussion

Brian Eno and David Byrne seem to have been very fascinated about the different religious recordings, which might be a result of seeking to create an imaginary and philosophical world. This in combination with seeing themselves as ‘non-musicians’, most likely enabled them to create music beyond the traditional musical instruments, and instead use their free imagination to break boundaries with the album ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’.

Additionally, the fact they see themselves as non-musicians and simply (or complexly) apply a tape recorder as an instrument, should open a new avenue and platform for all the other creative people who don’t play an instrument.

Music creativity has no limit in genre, background, race and diversity; music should be for everyone and equally accessible in the same context. However as a creator of culture it is important to understand a sounds origin and make sure that art is created responsibly.

Both Eno and Byrne are a phenomenon in their own right, both multi instru- mentalists that redefined genres and remained in cult status while at the same time playing sold out gigs across the world.

The first thing any critic would have said when one would hear that these artists are releasing an album together, there will be a lot of instruments involved and each will bring in their own musical background, however they went beyond that by composing with a device which is normally used as a recording medium, the tape recorder.

These brave musical creativities leave the door open for future artist to invest new ways to be diverse and innovative and don’t limit themselves to what has already been done in a world which is becoming more and more digital and automated.

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Composing with the tape recorder